Badal and NDA duping farmers on drought subsidy: Cong spokesperson

The Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) spokesperson Nimisha Mehta on Monday called the recent diesel subsidy a joke on the farmers in the state and said the farming community was paying the price of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal's vested interests in the BJP-led central government.

The centre had recently announced a subsidy of Rs 420 per acre for rain-deficit states. Mehta termed this 'grossly insufficient' and, in a press release issued, questioned why the CM failed to take up the issue of insufficient subsidy with the centre.

"In 2009, when the UPA government announced a drought subsidy of Rs 800 crore, the CM had termed it 'step-motherly treatment' towards Punjab. Out of that, Rs 600 crore was siphoned off by his government in the name of power subsidy. Only the remaining Rs 200 crore was distributed among farmers. But, when the BJP government at the centre announced a paltry Rs 420 per acre as subsidy, the Badals have failed to raise their voice.""

Given the current situation, Mehta claimed, the CM should explain which party's rule was better for the interests of the state - UPA or NDA.

Lambasting deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, Mehta said that while campaigning for the general elections, he had promised the people to bring 'trucks loaded with money' from the central government, if Modi was elected to power.

"Where are these truck-loads of money. Have they been stopped at the Rajpura border before entering Punjab, or they have failed to start from New Delhi," she remarked.

Saying that the Badals had traded the stae's welfare for a cabinet post for Harsimrat Kaur Badal (deputy CM's wife), she added, "Now nothing can be expected from them as far as welfare of the state and its people are concerned."